Friday, October 31, 2014

Pope Francis: 'Caring for the poor does not make you a communist'


Vatican still lost, no progress here at all.  Link at UK Independent here.
"Today I want to unite my voice with yours and accompany you in your fight," he said to participants at the World Meeting of Popular Movements,
Yeah it all has to be one big dog fight over scraps.... "survival of the fittest" you know.
"Beware of curs..."  (Phil 3:2)

13 comments:

mike norman said...

So? What if it did? It's really just a label.

Anonymous said...

People aren't in a fight?

What, is the magic money machine going to manufacture pure wealth out of the aether?

Calgacus said...

What, is the magic money machine going to manufacture pure wealth out of the aether? Yes, that is what happens when sane MMT / New Deal policies are adopted. It really isn't a neoclassical picture of dogs fighting for scraps.

For of course people are in a fight. But at a level of stupidity only human intelligence could attain. Elites whose only weapon is deceit convince the 99.9% to waste their lives punching themselves in the face. FF/MMT/JG/New Deal/WPA/correct accounting etc just means cessation of insane self-destruction, which effectively manufactures pure wealth out of the aether.

Magpie said...

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." (Warren Buffett)

There's little to wonder there, it seems.

Anonymous said...

"Yes, that is what happens when sane MMT / New Deal policies are adopted. It really isn't a neoclassical picture of dogs fighting for scraps."

Wealth is created by the application of human labor to real resources. Monetary operations can sometimes assist that process, but they aren't a magical key to endless real wealth. There is a struggle going on in the world for power and justice in the determination of the world's future on a crowded planet strapped for resources. This is a struggle that can't be avoided. There is no escape; there is no hiding place; there is no alchemical or spontaneous generation solution through "fiat" money magic. It's completely irresponsible to spread the message that somehow the struggle is unnecessary because we can "mark up bank accounts" or mint large denomination coins, etc. We aren't going to feed a world full of old people with hard drive bits of big coins.

Six said...

It helps, Dan. You can pay people to feed a world full of old people, care for their medical needs, etc., or you can pretend you are too broke.

Matt Franko said...

"There is a struggle going on in the world for power and justice"

Dan how is justice (krisis 'to set right') imposed except thru authority?

Try to think about "who" or "what" does the "setting right"?

Paul: "Let every soul be subject to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except under God. Now you do not want to be fearing the authority. 4 For it is God's servant for your good." Romans 13

How does a person expressing the belief that "we're out of money!" or "money is scarce! we have to fight it out over it!" manifest an ability to reckon authority?

No authority: No justice

From Mat 8

The centurion: "For I also am a man set under authority"

The Lord: "With no one in Israel so much faith did I find"

Faith is not measured by how many degrees one has from religious dogma schools... or how many cardinals you get to vote for you...

When we cannot recognize authority, we are faith-less and all we are left with is to "fight it out" with each other... "survival of the fittest" ie "no justice"...

the Pope seems content to just jump right into the fray here, seemingly also ultimately blind to authority and left faith-less.

"that we may by no means still be minors, surging hither and thither and being carried about by every wind of teaching" Eph 4:14

This Pope is still a minor (at best)... maybe that will change but I still see no progress to this point.

rsp,

Calgacus said...

There is no escape; there is no hiding place; there is no alchemical or spontaneous generation solution through "fiat" money magic.

Yes, there is, there can be. Just because neoliberals or you proclaim TINA, doesn't make it always true. In the ridiculous, but universal situation where governments create unemployment = destroy colossal resources, there is always an alternative, a magical free lunch, a soup stone: Aetherically "producing" resources merely by noticing how you have been destroying them.

The minimal, obvious, necessary and sufficient policy is a JG, which is the death to plutocracy, is socialism, is communism, benefits the whole 99+1 % enormously, not just the JG workers. As plutocrats have always understood, but as so many confused "socialists" "communists" and "leftists" have not.

Understanding correct accounting, monetary economics, MMT is essential; which is why I have been trying to explain how you have been getting things, getting the accounting, fundamentally, logically, philosophically (and hence instructively) wrong for a long time now, since when you still seemed to consider yourself as an MMTer. And such mistakes lead to a return to neoclassical, sound finance, commodity theory, "struggle for scarce scraps" thinking - the same story as the postwar degeneration of the New Economics (of Keynes et al).

Denying that there can be a "free lunch" is the magical thinking - just like that of lunatics who say that the destruction of Europe in WWII magically "caused" its subsequent prosperity "due to" rebuilding. Because it is equally blind to manifest destruction, which is - manifestly destructive.

As I said, there is a fight, so I agree with you, Magpie, Francis and maybe not Matt. But it is important to understand the fight. The rich class are not trying to commandeer more "scarce" resources from the poor in a zero sum game. They are trying to destroy the poor, make miserable, even at a cost to themselves in what is usually considered wealth. Sabotaging the economy, sabotaging everybody else is how the rich class gets its jollies. As a class, billionaires prefer more homelessness, poverty, misery and early death to another billion - which they have no idea what to do with anyway.

Pope meets members of World Meeting of Popular Movements is the closest I can find to an English transcript of Francis's speech, which seems to be very consistent with the MMT outlook and thus not lost.

Magpie said...

Matthew 10:34

34 "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 "For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW...

----------

"Elites whose only weapon is deceit convince the 99.9% to waste their lives punching themselves in the face"

The Deadly Threat of Non-Lethal Weapons Leave a comment
01/11/2014 by Don Quijones
http://ragingbullshit.com/2014/11/01/the-deadly-threat-of-non-lethal-weapons/

"In Spain, government spending on anti-riot material and equipment, including rubber bullets, bullet-proof shields and tear gas canisters, has grown by a staggering 1,780 percent just in last year, from 173,670 euros in 2012 to 3.26 million in 2013."

A little more than just deceit...

Anonymous said...

"It helps, Dan. You can pay people to feed a world full of old people, care for their medical needs, etc., or you can pretend you are too broke."

Whether you are broke or not at macroeconomic level has nothing to do with the quantity of monetary units in circulation.

Anonymous said...

When there is unemployment, the unemployed should be employed. When there is underutilized economic capacity, it should be fully utilized. When there is a maldistribution of real capital resources, they should be better distributed. These aren't accounting and monetary phenomena.

You're promoting monetary voodoo - no different that the market monetarists and New Keynesian wankers.

Matt Franko said...

Dan,

Perhaps this way: "its not 'the money' its what the 'money' represents" ?

Its like 'Symbolism', it symbolizes our authority to impose economic justice, promulgate economic judgement... so if we can be seen understanding state currency, then it follows that we understand authority... and then things will start to be set right...

No more "we're out of money!" ie "we have no authority!" to impose justice...

Here is the Lord to Israel with another example for them: "Exhibit to Me the poll tax currency." Now they bring to Him a denarius.
20 And He is saying to them, "Whose is this image and the inscription?" Mat 22

Its not "the money" its "the authority" it represents...


Mag,

that was the Lord to Israel their leadership was corrupt... many were on the side of the corrupt leadership while many remained faithful... so for the house of Israel to be able to recognize Him, it necessarily would pit the one cohort against the other... for instance if the father was faithful but the son went corrupt, then this was going to be a problem for that relationship if Israel was ever going to go thru a process of recognizing their Messiah...

all of that is over now, water over the dam... ancient history...

We in the nations are not Israelites, we can be a law unto ourselves... '10 commandments" do not apply to us..

We have "the action of the law written in our hearts":

"14 For whenever they of the nations that have no law, by nature may be doing that which the law demands, these, having no law, are a law to themselves,
15 who are displaying the action of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying together and their reckonings between one another, accusing or defending them," Romans 2

Right now I would say we are "accusing them" due to our indignation at the sight of all the injustice...

Look at our Tom and Roger here; they both I assume are Darwinists and are not believing creation or any of that stuff, YET they can still recognize injustice when they see it and want to see justice imposed... how can they do this? If they dont understand creation and think we evolved from nothing?

I dont think they are this way because somebody read them the "10 commandments" one time LOL!... they have "the ACTION of the law written in their hearts" as Paul taught here...

And further they have an above average recognition of authority which must be if we are to enforce this "law of our hearts"...

So dont look at the Lord's dealings with Israel as directly applicable to we in the nations this is bad teaching... we of the nations (at one time at least) go about it differently but can get to the same place... but not without a substantial ability to reckon authority within our cohort...

Here's Paul again: "for it is not ours to wrestle with blood and flesh, but with the sovereignties, with the authorities, with the world-mights of this darkness," Eph 6

We (nominally "Christians") are NOT supposed to jump willy-nilly into these flesh fights, our "war" is (supposed to be) with the other authorities...

rsp,

Calgacus said...

Moi: "Elites whose only weapon is deceit convince the 99.9% to waste their lives punching themselves in the face"

Magpie: A little more than just deceit... Yes, right. But I don't think this was meant that way. Only a little more, a trivial, negligible nothing, like all these guns and anti-riot gear, all the "chains of dew".

A good rule these days is when one sees something qualified by a "just" or "mere", then that it is essential and should be closely examined, while what is considered to outweigh it is negligible. Don't understand how you meant the biblical reference.

Dan, if that reply was to me, then the problem is that your monetary theory, which is basically the commodity theory, is wrong, in ways (however interesting, subtle and enlightening to me) that I have been pointing out for years. It leads you to say things that anybody would say are preposterous, which should be taken to disprove the theory, and show it, not MMT to be voodoo.

For instance,unemployment most certainly is an "accounting and monetary phenomen[on]". Unemployment is defined as people who want work for money, but can't get it. They lack money. They want to have a higher balance in their accounts.
This is a monetary and accounting phenomenon. You can't understand economics, society, by focusing solely on "the real".